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Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

science.org

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Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#191

Post by Melatonic »

paulnpace wrote: post #143
chmod775 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some food for thought: Something like that was their normal and they likely had all of these sorted out with relative ease, given that they'd be experts at that kind of living. Also wild food sources were plentiful. Overall they may have enjoyed more downtime than us, who have to do quite a bit to maintain our higher standards of living. Estimates are that hunter-gatherers "worked" around 20 hours / week to su…

I have wondered if animal husbandry played a larger role than agriculture, alone. The horse, as we know it, altered all of civilization.

The dog probably as well - and both horses and dogs are similar to people in that they are great at traversing long distances.

Horses also have semi similar more specialized analogues - you could argue Camels filled a similar niche for very dry areas. And other animals like Goats/Llamas/Alpacas for mountainous areas.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#192

Post by aaroninsf »

tim333 wrote: post #187
hax0ron3 wrote: post #7

It's wild to think how long very human-like beings and modern humans existed before the technological revolution really took off. Hundreds of thousands of years of existing on the technological level of stone tools, spears, cloth made out of hides, and fire. Then at some unknown point probably in the last 100,000 years, the bow and arrow. Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlock…

There seems a bit of an acceleration ~ 50-100k years from evolving brains similar to modern ones to agriculture, ~8k year from there to writing, ~4k to the printing press, ~400 till computers, ~40 till the web and so on. Each of those has kind of speeded intellectual progress and AI will probably be another speeding up.

A fun way to look at this is that the "long head" (ramp) of the singularity began some hundreds of thousands of years ago. We're just living in teh exciting bit.

Many tens of millions if you want to start with the emergence of primates, etc.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#193

Post by LinuxAmbulance »

jstanley wrote: post #118
hax0ron3 wrote: post #7

It's wild to think how long very human-like beings and modern humans existed before the technological revolution really took off. Hundreds of thousands of years of existing on the technological level of stone tools, spears, cloth made out of hides, and fire. Then at some unknown point probably in the last 100,000 years, the bow and arrow. Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlock…

There is a good post on this topic: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mFqG58s4NE3EE68Lq/why-did-ev...

"Good" is a bit of a stretch, as it asks a few short questions, but doesn't answer them in any useful fashion.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#194

Post by komodo99 »

Melatonic wrote: post #191
paulnpace wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wondered if animal husbandry played a larger role than agriculture, alone. The horse, as we know it, altered all of civilization.

The dog probably as well - and both horses and dogs are similar to people in that they are great at traversing long distances. Horses also have semi similar more specialized analogues - you could argue Camels filled a similar niche for very dry areas. And other animals like Goats/Llamas/Alpacas for mountainous areas.

I've always been partial to the notion that wolves domesticated human ancestors, honestly.

We like to say that dogs are wired to understand human language patterns, but who's not to say that we're not wired to emit canine 'linguistics'?

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#195

Post by komodo99 »

Schmerika wrote: post #151
Monotoko wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the cat, those little fluffy bastards walked into a human camp about 10,000 years ago and kicked everything off. That's why the Ancient Egyptians revered cats as Gods /s

Honestly not sure how necessary that /s is. Like, without cats storing grain becomes so, so much harder; maybe basically impossible/unfeasible. Without storing grain you don't get cities as easily or as long. Same with transporting food by boat; you gotta have a cat on your trireme or what are you even doing Andronikos. Countless poets, writers, scientists and artists have been directly inspired by cats. I could easi…

> introverts can hang with cats all day

There are certain personalities that are often attributed to modern sources, but haven't we always had that weird eccentric dude(tte) living in a shack that has a predilection to collect herbs/mine rocks/watch the skies/you name it, that isn't thought much of or seems productive until someone gets sick/needs ore/wants to know the weather/etc?

All that said, what did crazy cat people do before cats???

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#196

Post by lelanthran »

tim333 wrote: post #187
hax0ron3 wrote: post #7

It's wild to think how long very human-like beings and modern humans existed before the technological revolution really took off. Hundreds of thousands of years of existing on the technological level of stone tools, spears, cloth made out of hides, and fire. Then at some unknown point probably in the last 100,000 years, the bow and arrow. Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlock…

There seems a bit of an acceleration ~ 50-100k years from evolving brains similar to modern ones to agriculture, ~8k year from there to writing, ~4k to the printing press, ~400 till computers, ~40 till the web and so on. Each of those has kind of speeded intellectual progress and AI will probably be another speeding up.

> Each of those has kind of speeded intellectual progress and AI will probably be another speeding up.

Maybe. I can imagine a dystopian Idiocracy type future where everyone is the "ideas guy".

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#197

Post by netcan »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #188
netcan wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heidlebergensis is no longer thought to be on the sapiens lineage. It's probably the ancestor of neanderthals and denisovans. 400kya is around the time of this divergence, based on recent genomics. They were the same species at this time. The Sapiens lineage is now thought to have diverged significantly earlier. Erectus existed, but in pockets. Other lineages existed also. At the very least, Homo naledi. Probably oth…

We shouldn't use the word "species" lightly with hominins. There's no accepted way to properly classify archaic humans. For example, some paleoanthropologists classify most archaic humans as h. sapiens. Anatomically modern humans become h. s. sapiens, neanderthal become h. s. neanderthalensis. This incorporates the middle pleistocene hominins from mainland Asia pretty well to boot. Many of those same people also use…

Sure... and it would help if there was more consistency in general.

But given that there isn't, we should at least maintain internal consistency. That's what I was commenting on above. You can't use one conceptual framework for Neanderthals/Eurasia and another for Sapiens/Africa. It's confusing... and you end up with statements that are essentially false.

Neanderthal and Sapiens exist approximately concurrently. The "classic neanderthal" form doesn't predate sapiens. It only predates Sapiens if we define "Neanderthal" from the point of divergence. If we do that, we need to define Sapiens the same way. It can't be the establishment of a founder population for one and the emergence of a distinct form for the other.

I'm not advocating for one system or another... or even for the establishment of one consistent system necessarily.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#198

Post by jarjoura »

chmod775 wrote: post #138
jarjoura wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't imagine having to live with anxiety of just staying alive. Constant diseases, infestations, starvation, animal attacks. You would never feel like you have time to just, be. Instead you're focused on getting your next meal, and finding a place to sleep. It only took a few ice-ages to force us to get smart about how we organize and then here we are.

Here's some food for thought: Something like that was their normal and they likely had all of these sorted out with relative ease, given that they'd be experts at that kind of living. Also wild food sources were plentiful. Overall they may have enjoyed more downtime than us, who have to do quite a bit to maintain our higher standards of living. Estimates are that hunter-gatherers "worked" around 20 hours / week to su…

One broken limb or scratch would likely mean you're not going to live much longer. It would have been especially horrific if you broke your foot or leg and weren't able to do anything about it.

Also, children were easy food, and women definitely died in childbirth.

How many broken teeth did you just suffer with for the rest of your life? Scurvy wasn't just a disorder that was tied to long ship travel.

Mosquitos carried pathogens, the other food sources were also of random quality.

If you were born with poor eyesight or hearing, too bad.

I could keep going on, but the point is, being a self-aware mammal would have been absolutely torturous.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#199

Post by Schmerika »

komodo99 wrote: post #195
Schmerika wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly not sure how necessary that /s is. Like, without cats storing grain becomes so, so much harder; maybe basically impossible/unfeasible. Without storing grain you don't get cities as easily or as long. Same with transporting food by boat; you gotta have a cat on your trireme or what are you even doing Andronikos. Countless poets, writers, scientists and artists have been directly inspired by cats. I could easi…

> introverts can hang with cats all day There are certain personalities that are often attributed to modern sources, but haven't we always had that weird eccentric dude(tte) living in a shack that has a predilection to collect herbs/mine rocks/watch the skies/you name it, that isn't thought much of or seems productive until someone gets sick/needs ore/wants to know the weather/etc? All that said, what did crazy cat p…

> haven't we always had that weird eccentric dude(tte)

I would bet the first human to do lots of stuff was that weird eccentric dude(tte). Who else would come up with writing, or words, or carry fire, or wear clothes, domesticate a wolf, etc.

> what did crazy cat people do before cats???

I have no idea, but that's a great question.

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